Insurers fail in apportionment case

Insurers withheld 27.5% of a judgment entered by consent for £205,000, on the basis that they were not on risk for that proportion of the period of culpable exposure. Insurers sought to rely upon a standard ‘rateable proportion’ clause in the policy which reduced cover to the extent that other insurance covered the same liability. This was rejected by the Court on the grounds that the clause applied to cases of ‘double insurance’ – more than one policy in a single policy period – rather than to successive policies covering the same risk in different policy periods.